Fear of the Unknown

I have to admit when I signed up for this class, I had no idea what to expect. I am an English Adolescence Education major at Geneseo and needed to add another course to my schedule. On the first day, we were asked to define what digital humanities is and I struggled with this question extremely. Digital humanities was definitely not a term used in my everyday vocabulary. The title of this course intrigued me and I was eager to explore what digital humanities was all about since it was a topic so foreign to me. The Monday and Wednesday time slot fit perfectly into my schedule and I thought I should take a risk for once and give it a shot! After going over the syllabus and the course’s expectations, I was extremely nervous and worried that I would not have what it takes to do well in this course since I had barely any prior knowledge about computers. I can type fast and that is about all I can do when it comes to computer talent!

The words binary and coding were very unfamiliar to me. I have never had a good relationship with my computer in the past and felt if anything, my computer has given me nothing but a headache. Whenever something happens with my computer, I often look to google and see if I can figured it out myself. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I cannot and have to go to CIT to help me. Last semester, my hard drive failed on me which was the peak of frustration with my computer. Everyday I was forced to rent out a computer every four hours and I was not allowed to borrow it over night. I am sure anyone could imagine how irritating this could be right in the middle of the semester! I also lost everything on my computer but learned the valuable lesson of how important it is to back up your pictures and other documents somewhere else.

In the future, I plan on becoming a teacher and would love to share my knowledge on computers and technology in general. Technology is quickly advancing and has become so dominant in today’s society, so it is essential for teachers to be able to teach their students how to understand and work with it. Inventions such as the smart board have made a huge impact in the teaching world and new inventions are constantly arising. The newer generations have become so reliant on technology that is important to include technology based lessons so that you can keep students engaged and interested. When I was in high school, we practically had a smart board in every single room and I still had teachers refuse to use them because either they simply did not know how to use them, were not educated on how, or they were old fashioned and did not believe in using it. This made learning much more boring and redundant. I believe that schools should implement programs for teachers where they can learn the best way to integrate technology into their everyday teaching and make the learning experience much more exciting.

Although I do not have much experience with my computer, my iPhone is a completely different story. Similar to most people, I am addicted to my phone. When I wake up I check it, during class I check it, and a lot of the time, it keeps me up late at night. I believe that we do not take advantage of what technology has to offer, instead, we are all just stuck on social media when there is so much more to know and learn.

Almost a month later of being this class and I have learned so much. I love the different approach this course takes. Most english classes are just discussion based and get repetitive and boring, however, this class is hands on and we get time to navigate our computers during class time. It is the perfect balance. Each day we explore new things and I can actually say I learn something new every class period. I never knew applications such as Atom and VirtualBox even existed. I am so glad that my eyes have been opened to other applications, other than your simple basic stickies or photo booth.

 

 

 

 

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